IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/restud/v92y2025i5p2828-2860..html

Markups and Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • Corina Boar
  • Virgiliu Midrigan

Abstract

We characterize optimal product market policy in an unequal economy in which firm ownership is concentrated and markups increase with firm market shares. We study the problem of a utilitarian regulator who designs revenue-neutral interventions in the product market. We show that optimal policy increases product market concentration. This is because policies that encourage larger producers to expand improve allocative efficiency, increase the demand for labour and equilibrium wages. We derive these results both in a static Mirrleesian setting in which we impose no constraints on the shape of interventions, as well as in a dynamic economy with wealth accumulation. In our dynamic economy optimal policy reduces wealth and income inequality by redistributing market share and profits from medium-sized businesses, which are primarily owned by relatively rich entrepreneurs, to larger diversified corporate firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Corina Boar & Virgiliu Midrigan, 2025. "Markups and Inequality," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 92(5), pages 2828-2860.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:92:y:2025:i:5:p:2828-2860.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/restud/rdae103
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Gagnie Pascal Yebarth, 2025. "On Taxation Policy in Strategic Bilateral Exchange: A review," EconomiX Working Papers 2025-34, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    3. Albrecht, Brian C. & Phelan, Thomas & Pretnar, Nick, 2023. "Time Use and the Efficiency of Heterogeneous Markups," MPRA Paper 118172, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Eren Gürer, 2022. "Rising markups and optimal redistributive taxation," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(5), pages 1227-1259, October.
    5. Tarek Benjamin Moll & Lukasz Rachel & Pascual Restrepo, 2019. "Uneven Growth: Automation’s Impact on Income and Wealth Inequality," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-333, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    6. Mertens, Matthias & Mottironi, Bernardo, 2023. "Do larger firms exert more market power? Markups and markdowns along the size distribution," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121283, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Patrick Macnamara & Myroslav Pidkuyko & Raffaele Rossi, 2021. "Marginal tax changes with risky investment," Working Papers 2116, Banco de España.
    8. Madsen, Jakob & Minniti, Antonio & Venturini, Francesco, 2024. "Declining research productivity and income inequality: A centenary perspective," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 167(C).
    9. Mertens, Matthias & Mottironi, Bernardo, 2025. "Do larger firms exert more market power? Markups and markdowns along the size distribution," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    10. Mertens, Matthias & Mottironi, Bernardo, 2025. "Do larger firms exert more market power? Markups and markdowns along the size distribution," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 128958, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    11. Han, Minsoo & Pyun, Ju Hyun, 2021. "Markups and income inequality: Causal links, 1975-2011," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 290-312.
    12. Boar, Corina & Knowles, Matthew, 2024. "Optimal taxation of risky entrepreneurial capital," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    13. Matthias Kehrig & Nicolas Vincent, 2021. "The Micro-Level Anatomy of the Labor Share Decline," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(2), pages 1031-1087.
    14. Boyan Jovanovic, 2019. "The entrepreneurship premium," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 555-568, October.
    15. Corina Boar & Matthew Knowles, 2020. "Entrepreneurship, Agency Frictions and Redistributive Capital Taxation," Discussion Paper Series, School of Economics and Finance 202004, School of Economics and Finance, University of St Andrews.
    16. Benhabib, Jess & Hager, Mildred, 2021. "Revenue diversion, the allocation of talent, and income distribution," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 138-144.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:restud:v:92:y:2025:i:5:p:2828-2860.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/restud .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.